


The Province of Marks

by stitchcasual



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 02 (Critical Role), M/M, bed sharing, fake tarot cards, takes place during episode 2, vague spoilers i guess for ep 2?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/pseuds/stitchcasual
Summary: What's a tiefling to do when he's under house arrest in an inn where he doesn't have a room?  Bunk up with the only other person without a roommate, of course.





	The Province of Marks

**Author's Note:**

> Good god that set of lines came on stream and my friend and I texted each other like "OH NO, WE HAVE TO SHARE A BED WHATEVER WILL WE DO"  
> so obviously I had to write it  
> I'm on the Fjolly slowburn train to hell toot toot

There’s no way he’d show it, but he’s fucking nervous here in this inn, with these odd assorted people thrown together by chance that he’s just met rather than with the odd assorted people thrown together by chance that he’s grown used to over the last two years of bumping around with the carnival. If he were more of a self-important tiefling, he’d feel some sort of responsibility for it; after all, if he hadn’t stopped by their tables earlier that day, offered the little blue tiefling a reading, and encouraged them all to come to the carnival, perhaps he wouldn’t be stuck here.

However, were it not for them, as well, he’d like as not be jailed with Gustav and Bo, so he’ll take the little bit of luck or fate handed to him and see where it goes.

He flips the card on top of his deck idly as the conversation around him winds down toward a close, closing his eyes against the eyebrows that threaten to climb up his forehead when he sees what it is. The Stranger, reversed. He’d stacked his own deck against himself. He can work with that, though, eyes flicking up to evaluate the half-orc across from him. Fjord’s attention, still sharp despite the hour, lies elsewhere, watching the smaller two of their unlikely group, and Mollymauk seizes the opportunity to size him up and decide that yes, it’ll work.

“Where, exactly, am I gonna be sleeping, by the way?” he says, tossing his comment to the center of the group with a casual flair Gustav would be proud of, avoiding looking directly at Fjord. “I mean, I can sleep down here but, uh, it might be nice to—”

“Molly.”  _ Ah, excellent, right on cue. _ “If you’d like to share my room, you can.” 

Fjord may be skeptical of his card readings, if the glances Molly’s seen are any indication, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be skillfully maneuvered into the right positions nonetheless. With a smile and a flourishing bow, Molly allows Fjord to lead the way to the room he’s been renting. He wonders if, at the end of his however-long stay with them, they’ll demand he pay for some share of the fee, but he doubts it. Fjord doesn’t seem the type, too...good and honorable. It amuses Molly to see such a man with companions like Jester and Beau, two decidedly capricious individuals.

The door shut and locked behind them, Mollymauk sets to his nighttime ritual with his blades, unsheathing and laying them out on his coat, seeing to them with his undivided attention. Despite his typical wariness at having someone at his back, Molly’s perception of Fjord fades from his conscious mind as he focuses on the scimitars, Fjord disappearing as surely as any of Molly’s fellow carnies would if he were back in the tents. It’s only as he surfaces, the blades cleaned and rolled carefully in the fabric, that he realizes it happened. He peers back over his shoulder, but Fjord looks to only have just completed his own sword-based ritual, the falchion sheathed and standing next to the bed rather than slung at his hip.

The bed...there is only one, shoved into the corner of the small room, but from the track marks Molly can see on the floor, it seems as though Fjord pushed it there himself the first night he was here. As Molly rises, Fjord looks from him to the bed and back, chagrin on his face, and he stands, hands reaching out to drag the bed back to its former position under the single window.

“Whatever makes you feel more comfortable,” Molly says quickly, holding up a hand before Fjord can move things around. “Besides, if you move that over here, where will I sleep?” He gestures to the open piece of floor space where the bed had originally been..

Fjord gives Mollymauk the most perfectly scandalized look he thinks he’s seen in his entire life. Really, it’s beautiful, a work of art, and it takes all of Molly’s considerable showman skills to keep his face straight and not have himself a little giggle before Fjord speaks.

“I’d reckoned we could share, if you’re amenable. I sleep against the wall anyway, so there’s room enough.”

Molly watches Fjord scratch the back of his neck and delights in the subtle shifts in his facial skin tone, difficult to catch if one isn’t familiar with orc physiology. Which Molly is. Bo the Breaker might look tough and be tough, but he still blushes as pretty as anything with the right words, and Molly has found quite a few of those over the years.

“That’ll suit me just fine.” He doesn’t say more, Fjord is wound tightly enough as it is, and when the pretty half-orc realizes that’s all Molly’s saying, he visibly relaxes a fraction. Molly reminds himself that sometimes less is more and that some marks require a lighter touch than others. Not that Fjord is a mark, not anymore: the zombie attack at the carnival had chased all intentions of pillaging valuables off the unsuspecting audience from his mind, and the subsequent arresting and narrow escape, thanks mostly to himself and Fjord, respectively, have more than made going back to that thought an impossibility.

“You’ll be sleeping in your armor, then?” Molly asks, removing his shirt and folding it slowly in his hands. Fjord stares across at him, at the naked lavender torso covered in scars and swirls of ink. The feather tattoo that climbs Molly’s neck and face also descends down the side of his chest, disappearing beyond the waist of his trousers. The body of the bird it belongs to covers half his ribs on that side with the rest of its plumage draping around toward his back. With a cough and muttered negative, Fjord turns away and begins the process of unbuckling the straps that hold the battered leathers together, his focus intense. Though Molly had been enjoying the dumbstruck look on Fjord’s face as he undressed, he pulls off his long boots without trying to make a show of it. He has, perhaps, pushed it as far as is wise tonight. And it’s not like Fjord is watching anymore.

Molly arranges the coat holding his scimitars next to Fjord’s falchion along the wall. He lines his boots next and sets his shirt on top of the coat. When he’s satisfied it’s all to his liking, Fjord has already climbed into the bed. True to his word, he’s pressed his back as close to the wall as he can get, eyes closed, breathing suspiciously even. Sure enough, when Molly shoves the blanket off the side of the bed he’s to sleep on, Fjord cracks one eye open to watch.

“I run hotter than most folk,” Molly explains with a wink, bunching the blanket as close to Fjord as he dares. Fjord responds by blinking then closing his eyes again, letting out a deep breath as he rearranges his head on the pillow. He doesn’t move again as Molly climbs onto the bed, lying on his side facing Fjord. It takes Molly longer than he’s used to to fall asleep, tension in his chest distracting him and causing his tail to flick and jump. The last thing he remembers hearing before he manages to sleep is Fjord’s low snoring.

The sky is still dark when he awakes, still hours from morning if he’s any judge, so that can’t be why he’s conscious. He’s warmer though, warmer than usual especially with the night as chilly as it’s been, frost collecting at the corners of the window. And it’s a localized warmth, which is confusing, his chest feeling it more than his back. 

Fjord shifts in his sleep, and Molly’s red eyes shoot open. Sometime in the night, Molly assumes without meaning to, Fjord moved from up against the wall to up against Molly, scooting a little down the bed to fit himself under Molly’s chin and along his body. One arm is curled between them, the other is a deadweight across Molly’s hip. The blanket is still wedged halfway between their bodies, but Fjord’s managed to work around it and grapple onto him anyway. 

Molly stretches a little experimentally, amusement and something softer curling his lips when Fjord’s arm tightens over his hip. He settles back down, draping his own arm around Fjord with care, not wanting to wake him and hear the apologies he can already imagine. Better to stay here, go back to sleep, and simply pretend in the morning that nothing had happened. This time it’s easier to drop off into dreamland but as a longtime huckster, Mollymauk knows better than to read too far into things. He’ll enjoy what he has while he has it, but he’ll not willfully delude himself that it’s anything other than what it appears at face value. That’s the province of marks.

So he feigns sleep when Fjord wakes up as the sun crests through the window, only moving after Fjord jerks away and tries to sneak off the bed via the foot. He composes himself rather quickly, Fjord does, and if it weren’t for that, Molly may not have fucked with him about the swords (though he may have anyway, just for the fun of it). He couldn’t resist, wondering if he’d be able to spin a tale for Fjord that he’d believe, despite his skepticism about everything Mollymauk does. Perhaps the story is a tad heavy handed, but Fjord listens attentively throughout, his eyebrows lifting and driving dark furrows into the green of his forehead. At the end he nods and their eyes meet. It’s just for a moment, but that tension’s back in Molly’s chest as he feels Fjord’s gaze go right through him. He knows for a cold, certain fact that Fjord caught him in the lie, knows it’s when people realize they’ve been lied to that they get angry or violent, but all Fjord says is, “Well, thank you for sharing that honest story with me. Means a lot.”

Molly leaves the room feeling unbalanced and entirely uncertain about everything other than one thing: he needs to figure this mystery out so he can get back to his family, to the carnival, to the place where he belongs, not trailing around with people he barely knows. But all he has is this bit of luck or fate that landed them together in the first place, so he gathers his wits about him and prepares to follow it, and them, for whatever good it will do.

**Author's Note:**

> (can't wait for half of this insinuated Molly shit I wrote to come out as wrong but ayo aye whatever, right?)  
> hanging out on [tumblr](http://stitchcasual.tumblr.com) in a bunch of fandoms, come say hi!


End file.
